Silver:
Change Director for SQL Server
Quest Software • www.quest.com
Why it won: Change Director for SQL
Server’s Change Tracker and Log Reader
components are particularly well conceived. Change
Tracker offers real-time alerts about database changes,
and Log Reader provides an easy-to-use way to
roll back unwanted changes.
Bronze:
SQL Sentry Event Manager
SQL Sentry • www.sqlsentry.net
Why it won: SQL Sentry Event Manager
lets DBAs see, understand, and manage
SQL Server efficiently. Its unique crosssystem
job scheduling and monitoring capabilities
make it a stand-out in the market.
Database Monitoring and Performance Winners
Gold:
SQL diagnostic manager
Idera • www.idera.com
Why it won: SQL diagnostic manager lets you easily
monitor and manage the health, performance, and
availability of your SQL Server instances.
When a SQL Server instance goes down or performs
poorly, it can have a devastating impact on your IT
infrastructure. You need to be able to easily monitor
a server’s performance, health, and availability at all “SQLdm 5.0 includes everything you need to detect
and diagnose most performance problems affecting
your SQL Server instances.” The product’s easy-touse
UI lets you monitor multiple SQL Server instances
from one console and analyze performance trends
through predefined reports. SQLdm is agentless and
includes customizable alerts and notifications, as well
as a centralized data repository.
“It’s very easy to use. It gives you all the information
you want without having to load agents
everywhere,” says SQL Server DBA Patrick Sheehan.
“It’s a very small footprint on my SQL Server
systems.”
—Megan Bearly
See associated figure
Silver:
Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise
Quest Software • www.quest.com
Why it won: Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise
not only offers real-time performance
metrics that let you easily find and diagnose
performance problems—it also lets you automate
problem resolution.
Bronze:
Embarcadero Performance Center
Embarcadero • www.embarcadero.com
Why it won: With Embarcadero Performance
Center, you can monitor your databases
from any computer that has Internet access, and its customizable
alert thresholds and historical reporting help
keep your SQL Server instances running at maximum
performance.
Development Platform Winners
Gold:
XMLSpy 2008
Altova • www.altova.com
Why it won: XML has become a core infrastructure
technology for many companies and products.
Altova XMLSpy is the leading XML development
platform and earns the gold in our development
platform category.
Some SQL Server developers work with XML frequently,
particularly if they must integrate SQL
Server with Web services. Altova XMLSpy 2008 has
emerged as one of the preeminent XML development
platforms and offers the editing and development
features XML-savvy SQL Server developers
need to be able to power through their tasks. “XML
has become a core infrastructure technology for
many companies and products, and Altova XML-Spy is the leading XML development platform,”
says Michael Otey. “Many [SQL Server developers]
use XMLSpy for developing XML documents
and style sheets, as well as creating and debugging
Web services.”
XMLSpy 2008 includes all the basic editing,
debugging, and profiling features that developers
need in an XML editor, as well as tight integration
with Visual Studio 2008. When database
integration is required, XMLSpy doesn’t disappoint.
It offers support for the most popular relational
databases in their native languages, easily
imports and exports data, and can use existing
database structures to quickly create XML schemas.
All these features combine to make XMLSpy
2008 a must-buy for SQL Server developers
using XML.
—Jeff James
See associated figure
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